Four Stone Hearth #49

Welcome to the 49th edition of the Four Stone Hearth, a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focusing primarily on four lines of research:

archaeology

socio-cultural anthropology

bio-physical anthropology

linguistic anthropology

Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth.

I’ve hosted the FSH several times, but this will be the first time hosted at my new domain. If you haven’t noticed, A Hot Cup of Joe is no longer at WordPress (or blogspot, if you remember my first home). Here’s this edition’s roundup of great blogging on Anthropology:

Aardvarchaeology
First up is Aardvarchaeology where Martin Rundkvist has a Book Review: Alsdorf, auf den Spuren. In this review, which is a fascinating read, Martin discusses Dietrich Alsdorf’s book, Auf den Spuren des “Elbe-Kommandos” RammjÃ¤ger (2001). The topic is the Sonderkommandos who flew German planes which the used to “hunt” (jÃ¤ger is “hunter”) Allied bombers they would then ram into. Visit the link, read the review, and see how it all relates to archaeology!

Neuroanthropology
Next is a set of posts from all three of the bloggers at Neuroanthropology, a collaborative weblog that “encourage[s] exchanges among anthropology, philosophy, social theory, and the brain sciences.”

A Very Remote Period Indeed
The only other submission I received this edition was from Julien Riel-Salvatore titled, Surveying Surveys. Julien is back from the field and, we’re all happy to see, blogging again! His post this edition is a review of a set of three reports of separate archaeological sites of the same general period. What’s interesting is the methods each site employs to obtain knowledge of the past. Read how Julien compares and contrasts their methods and get some insight into the process of surveying a site.

A Hot Cup of Joe
I’m going to add my own submission since it was a short carnival. A few days ago I posted The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Reviewing and Ethnography. I typically write about archaeology, but I subscribe to the Binfordian view that archaeology is anthropology and it’s necessary to understand ethnography and cultural anthropology to truly reveal the Truth of past cultures. In this essay, I review Ruth Benedict’s famous ethnography as well as two other essays praising and criticizing her.

You’ve Been Stoned!
If your blog post falls under this list, its because I noticed it and thought it would fit well with this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. Hope you don’t mind the link love!

That’s it for this edition of the Four Stone Hearth. If you’re an anthropology blogger and want to participate, see below. If you’re an anthropologist or a student of anthropology that doesn’t have your own blog but interested in sharing your thoughts in anthropology, drop me a line (cfeagans@ahotcupofjoe.com). I’m interested in having the occasional guest-blogger and it can be a one-time thing or regular.

Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Martin Rundkvist.

If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Martin. You are encouraged to submit other bloggers’ work as well as your own.